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Editorial The Ninth Adelaide Festival of Arts, heralded proudly by Alban Berg's Wozzeck (an opera which could not be adequately performed in the Sydney Opera House but fitted with ease and stYle into the Adelaide Festivel Theatre), proved again that this smaller capital city is most admirably suited as a venue for a festival of arts. Although Writers' Week was not graced by some of the more famous who had accepted invitations and although some of the contributors seemed more concerned with politics than poetry, it nevertheless brought together writers from all over the country, and from overseas, and enabled them to meet, under excellent conditions, for the exchange of ideas. Perhaps Writers' Week should be held annuallyin Canberra on the alternate years. The contribution to the Festival from the visual arts was disappointing. Major exhibitions by established artists, Clifton Pugh, Lloyd Rees, Noel Counihan and Brian Dunlop and half a dozen important works by Justin O'Brien were on show. Small exhibitions of jewellery, of plastics, of costumes and a group show of lesser known women painters were all interesting and well presented, but experimental art and the avant-garde scene appeared to rely almost entirely upon the contribution of Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik. Undoubtedly, the most interesting exhibition during the Festival was 'Genesis of a Gallery', a selection from the vast collection of works already assembled by the Australian National Gallery, Canberra. Clearly, the works shown were chosen to indicate the breadth of the Gallery's buying policy. Too much adverse publicity has been given to one or two of the works of art that form part of the collection and those visitors who saw 'Genesis of a Gallery' must have been astonished to find such impressive examples of works as diverse as a fifthcentury gold finial from Colombia and a Photorealist over-life-size portrait by Chuck Close. The Director, Mr James Mollison, his staff and his advisers have been far more eclectic in the accumulation of works than the general public had been led to believe. The Australian National Gallery already holds works of interest for all tastes. If it continues to expand with such expertise as has already been shown it will be a great collection. We must make sure that, even if economies must be made in many sections of government spending. and even if some economies are to be made in grants to the arts in this country, funds should still be available to allow this great collection to expand and to expand by the purchase of only the best works on the market. 330 Kenneth McConnel - a tribute R. N. Johnson The two terracotta koala bears squatting high above Macquarie Street on the pilasters at either end of the fa~ade of the B.M.A. building in Sydney provide a gentle and fitting tribute to Kenneth McConnel (with Joseph Fowell its architect at the end of the 1920s) who died in January this year at the age of seventy-nine. The koalas have their backs to the street and look sideways towards each other, unexpected and slightly eccentric elements in a fas:ade original in design, with vigorous terracotta decoration, which was recognized by the first R.I.B.A. Bronze Medal to be awarded in Australia. The impulsive enthusiasm and endless energy that led to such surprise elements in his buildings took other forms that sometimes terrified his friends, as in a demonstration, with neardisastrous results, of overseas hand signals while driving across the harbour bridge. Kenneth McConnel's early life as a member of a Queensland grazing family gave him a love of the Australian countryside and of country people, a fitting background for the work which he enjoyed most, a series of country homesteadssensible, straightforward buildings carrying on traditions started in the earliest days of this country. They were buildings that sat comfortably on carefully chosen sites and were planned in intimate and often intricate detail to meet country needs. He recorded his knowledge of country lore and country building in Planning the Australian Homestead, published by Ure Smith in 1947, a book still retaining immense value for families building in the country. Kenneth McConnel also designed a number of city housessimilatlywell planned and reminiscent in general character and indeed in detail, of those of his friend and one-time professor, Leslie Wilkinson, from whose architecture school at the University of Sydney he graduated in 1923 with first-class honours and the University Medal. After graduation he received the Board of Architects travelling scholarship, studying and working in London and Europe prior to returning to Australia to share an office with Joseph Fowell, with whom he won the competition for the B.M.A. building. Prior to World War II McConnel was one of the first architects in Australia to take a serious theoretical interest in building acoustics and building ventilation. Of a number of churches he designed in this period there were interesting technical innovations in two that were recognized for architectural merit - St Anne's at Bondi, ART and Australia April-June 1976 Kenneth H. McConnel which received a Sulman Medal, and the church at Proston, which was awarded the Queensland Architecture Medal. Subsequent to the war McConnell formed a new practice, which became McConnel Smith & Johnson in 1954 and in which he played an active role until his retirement in 1965. During that time he shared in the work on such buildings as Kindersley House and the Sydney Water Board, the latter receiving the City of Sydney award, and also acted as an advocate of town planning, in which he always had great interest. Having served in the army in both world wars McConnel had a continuing interest in the work of Legacy and of the War Veterans Home at Narrabeen, where he undertook a great deal of work, always endeavouring to retain the character of the natural bushland in which the buildings were set. At Narrabeen, surrounded by gumtrees, there is a kangaroo carved from sandstone by the sculptor Gerry Lewers, instigated by McConnel, further evidence of his commitment to Australian folklore. During his retirement McConnel wrote his memoirs, from which the following two paragraphs are drawn: 'In my most distant memories electricity was something very new, as were motor-cars, while aeroplanes were still only hoped for. In my schooldays I watched some of the earliest experiments in flying, when primitive biplanes tried, not always successfully, and one with fatal consequences, to fly from Hendon around the spire of Harrow Church and back again. 'Steel-and-concrete construction was still in its infancy when I began to learn about architecture, and we were trained on the lines that nothing in design would ever supplant the ideas of the Renaissance, while nothing in construction would take the place of bricks and mortar.' . Kenneth McConnel's life spanned a time of rapid and massive change to which he contributed, not as a major innovator, but as one who saw the value of retaining contact with the past and who made valuable and thoughtful contributions to those changes at all stages of his life.